St. Martin’s, London

Helen Ingham is running short letterpress courses

London College of Communications

The London College of Communications runs a Letterpress Skills Course at their Elephant and Castle Campus. Call Switchboard on + 44 (0)20 7514 6500 for more details.

Incline Press

Graham Moss and Kathy Whalen at the Incline Press in Oldham, Lancashire, offers personalised one-to-one tuition. Call 0161 627 1966 to speak to Graham or Kathy.

Richard Lawrence, Bath

Letterpress printing tuition and classes available in Bath from printer with 30+ years experience. Please contact Richard Lawrence to discuss your interests. Telephone 01225 313494 Email ZRLawrence@aol.com

The Monotype Type and Rule caster is similar to the Composition caster, but does not have the paper tape control mechanism, and so only casts individual sorts. Sizes from 4½pt to 36pt, and speed from 45 to 180 rpm (down to 9 rpm with low speed and Varigear). It can cast lead and rule from 1½pt to 12pt. It weighs 1326 lbs and its working floor area is 9×10 ft.

The Monotype Super caster produces individual type sorts from 4½pt to 72pt, at speeds from 4½ to 144 rpm (or 2 to 160 rpm with Varigear). With appropriate attachments, it can cast Palace Script, quotations, continuous border, swelled rule, lead and rule from 1pt to 18pt, and strip furniture from 24pt to 72pt. It weighs 1484 lbs and its working floor area is 8 ft sq.

Behind this site

In creating this site, I want to go some way to bridging the divide between those new starters who seek information on the web; and those practitioners that don’t get too involved with the internet. I’d love to hear what you think of the site.

Benjamin Brundell

Thinking About Letterpress

There’s some key considerations before you begin letterpress. You need to think about—

• Space—do you have enough? For many, letterpress hobbyists, the equipment will always expand to fill the space available. Over time, you’ll find that people will offer you more and more, and you’ll want to keep it. Ideally your space should be dry (type especially can suffer from type blight ), and must be on level ground
• Transport and Movement—the people who made type and equipment had a knack of making very heavy things. Presses are cast iron; type is made mainly from lead. You might need transport (like an estate car or van), and you’ll need the physical means of moving it between places
• Willingness to Renovate—how much time do you want to spend cleaning, polishing, painting? People will often have letterpress equipment that’s not been used for years, perhaps sitting in a shed. Do you want to spend a weekend with some wire wool and a bottle of white spirit?

Getting Hold of Things

So, what will you need? We have a guide to getting the right press and David Rose publishes detailed information on how to get hold of the accessories. At a basic level, you’ll want—

• A Press—you’ll have a range from the grandest Columbian, to a tiny Adana 5×3. The Briar Press website has a great museum of presses. As this site grows, I hope to add more detailed information about our UK-built presses
• Some Type—until around 2005, Stephenson, Blake produced founders’ type from their foundry in Sheffield. Some smaller-scale founders still exist (have a look at the Resources page), and produce type. Remember that it’s an expensive base material (lead), along with high-precision engineering, along with a diminishing skills base. New lead type is a lot of money. Second-hand type is cheaper (sometimes as cheap as scrap lead), but has some disadvantages: people don’t always care for their type, so you might see damaged characters; it may be worn; character numbers may be skewed ( eg characters may be missing). There’s a great artistic choice in type: will you go for the modern-looking Univers over Gill Sans; will Bell take favour over Times? Spend some time deciding what you’d like
• Ink and Paper—these ‘consumables’ of the hobby once came in a myriad of varieties: if you wanted yellow, round-cornered, gilt-edged folded cards they were available. Today, a more modest selection is available. There are technical notes on this site covering both paper and inks
• ‘Other Equipment’—this can range from the essential (wooden furniture to pack out your chases), to the specialist (machines to crimp the edges of paper) and everything in between.

So we’ve decided whether you’re in a position to print; you have an idea of what you need. How do you find it? The key is in getting in touch with as many people as possible. Obvious places to look are—

• eBay—both a blessing and a curse to the beginner. eBay allows you to pick up small quantities of what you’re after, sometimes at a good price. The wide audience, though, can often drive prices up. Have a browse of the letterpress listings, but don’t be disappointed if you’re pipped during the final seconds
• Online Classifieds—more specialist than eBay and more discerning. Try the UK listings on Briar Press, or the Printmaker site
• Trade or Hobby Publications—the British Printing Society’s Small Printer magazine carries small ads

The Act of Printing

This site has a wealth of practical guides to printing. Start with the help to find inspiration to print, getting all your type together, then the act of putting the press to work. Once you’ve completed the work, you should look to bind and present it.

The British Printing Society’s website has a section of downloadable letterpress guides including buying type, the whole letterpress process, motorising machines and so on. One to keep an eye on: the collection grows weekly.

Martyn Ould’s Old School Press demonstrates the printing process as a series of photographic overviews (have a look under the ‘At Work’ button). An example is his description of the making of Henry James Sat Here

Keeping Tidy and Sane

There is a collorary to the pleasure that comes from letterpress, you may look in your shop one afternoon and see a depressing, rusting, pile of lead and cast iron. Keep things tidy and bright, to avoid the Agony of Defeat in this Letterpress article from CreativePro Magazine.

Arthur Johnson has supplied this PDF of the Thompson Auto Platen Manual 3.36mb

T C Thompson and Sons sold the grandly-titled ‘Thompson-British Automatic Platen’, made in Buxton Street, Manchester.  While the machine competed with Heidelbergs, it still has a group of enthusiastic followers.  One particular feature is that the inking rollers have a cog at one end which links into a bike chain on the runner—this guarantees that there will be no slur—ink being dragged, rather than rolled, over the forme.

In 1929 the Sales Director of Thompson’s—Mr Holt—saw the new Heidelberg; and suggested that the firm should switch from their hand-fed ‘Gem’ platens to an automatically fed machine.  The new machine was first exhibited in 1937.

Bernard Bennett of Coventry offers the information that the machine pictured is not the original Thompson. The first version was effectivley a clone of the Heidelberg—Heidelberg didn’t like this and were successful in a patent infringement claim and almost all of those original Thompsons were destroyed. By 1940 around four remained. Bernard also says that post World War 2, Thompson platens were made at the Alvis car plant in Coventry.

The company made the modest claim that theirs was ‘the best auto platen in the world’, and supporters say that handling of paper stock is unparalleled.  Publicity showed that 0.04mm (bank) to 0.94mm (board) paper could be automatically fed.

Testimonials from Holland stated ”...The satisfaction exceeded our expectations; particularly the feed and delivery.  We consider this a great improvement on the…(German machine).”  Thompson must have been acutley aware of the challenge from Heidelberg.

The firm traded until the early 1990s having made 6,000 platens.  The premises were demolished shortly after.

Bill Elligett has posted a page about the Thompson at his site

Background

Gutenberg of Germany is credited with the invention of moveable type around 1450; but records show that both Chinese and Korean inventors had used the idea before the time. Gutenberg’s invention was the first to be exploited and the idea spread rapidly. There are three key stages in founding type—

• Punchcutting: creating a three-dimensional representation of the letter in the end of a bar of metal. This skilled work requires a number of other punches and tools to be used to create the punch, and then it be subject to hardening. Modern-day equivalents of punches can be seen in DIY stores to mark metal equipment with initials.
• Creating the Matrix: this step takes the punch, and strikes it in a softer metal to make a negative mould. The metal is usually brass
• Casting: this is filling the mould with molten type metal and removing the cast type

Type Founding in the Printing Economy in the UK

Type founding is a specialist industry needing artistic and design skills in equal measure with engineering prowess and ability to work in some of the very heavy aspects of industry. The industry was centred around the demand in Fleet Street, London; but other significant type founders worked where technical expertise was greatest—for example Stephenson, Blake of Sheffield.

The key constraint for printers was that type from a foundry had to be assembled by hand before printing could begin. This composition activity took a great deal of time and tied up capital in the type needed. As the 19th century grew to a close people we very keen to automate this part of the process—work began to look at producing type in the order it was needed. That’s to say go directly from the copy to the metal type with no sorting or composing process in between.

There became two families of type: foundry type (generally harder quality) that was produced in the great foundries; and composition type (slightly softer quality) that was produced from copy either by a specialist firm, or even by the printer himself.

UK Type Foundries

The UK had a number of very influential foundries. While early metal type from the continent (in particular Dutch type) was considered superior, the UK caught up and great names like Caslon, Figgins and Stephenson, Blake were established. The large number of small foundries gave way to a smaller number of large foundries. The last of the English Foundries, Stephenson, Blake of Sheffield stopped trading in December 2004. That foundry alone had acquired Charles Reed and Sons in 1905, and H. W. Caslon and Co in 1937.

Composition Type

Allowing printers to cast their own type was a key driver behind developments in composition type. There were two broad approaches: build a complete line of type from a machine; or build individual characters in the correct order from the machine.

Linotype and Intertype took a similar approach: the operator sat at a keyboard and typed the copy. While copy was being typed the matrices (type moulds) were assembled within the machine. Once a line was completed the moulds were filled with hot type metal and the resulting ‘slug’ was forced from the machine, being trimmed and shaped in the process. The Ludlow Typograph was similar, but the matrices were assembled by hand.

Monotype adopted a different tack. They split the operation between keying the copy and casting the type. Copy was typed on a Monotype Keyboard powered by compressed air which punched holes in a paper tape. The tape was then taken to a casting machine which used the paper tape to position a case of matrices and cast a single piece of type for each keystroke on the paper tape. The advantage of this approach was to allow for correction after composition had been produced by the machine.

In modern times, Monotype machines can be controlled by computer—allowing the direct production of metal type from a computer keyboard.

Further Information

• Dave Huges’ MetalType.co.uk site focusses on non-foundry type, especially Intertype and Linotype machines. The site also includes some letterpress-related classified adverts

Self-styled web guru Jakob Nielsen suggested that all sites should have some sort of ‘About’ section to help build credibility. I thought it best that I should offer a couple of words about me and my letterpress fascination.

I started printing in 2005 with an Adana 5×3 and have gone on from there to run a number of presses, including a Vicobold and Arab. I never print for money (not even to cover costs); and believe in John Ryder’s philosophy that to get paid would be to shackle oneself to the demands of another person.

All this is done in the garage at home in Rishworth (pictured above) West Yorkshire. It’s a wonderful part of the world, and you probably know you’ve been there because you’ve passed that farm on the M62 that sits between the Lancashire- and Yorkshire-bound carriageways.

If you’d like to get in touch, please contact me

It’s a fascinating area—how is it possible for type founders to judge the right proportions of words needed to fulfill the needs of printers? Different synopses were adopted for different purposes (like titling or display type; and ‘book work’) and from different foundries at different times.

There are some subtleties also: some founders would alter proportions to fit their casting machinery. Hence why some founts arrive that are not in alphabetical order. Others would swap out some characters to give the impression of a bigger fount.

John Southward’s Practical Printing of 1905 includes a footnote to say—
“There is a tradition in the oldest English type-foundry—the Caslon, in Chiswell Street, London—that the bill [of type] originated in a labourious and elaborate calculation of the number of letters used in setting a lengthy debate in the House of Commons, where is was supposed the best and most comprehensive English would be spoken”

This page shows some UK synopses: from Adana (who specialised in the smaller printer); Startype (a larger commercial foundry); and Miller and Richard’s Wood Letter Fount.

These apply to the English language only. Adana noted in their price lists that some overseas agents had adopted different synopses. Even with the UK, Startype supplied their customers in Wales with founts having fewer j, k, q and xs

Once you have your founts worked out, you’ll need to know where to put them in the case. David Bolton’s site of Type Cases shows both the cases and the different ways of organising the space.

As ever, any additions are welcome

Adana

Adana published two founting schemes: one for titling and caps only founts; and another for book work.

Book Work

Founted like this –

UPPER CASE										LOWER CASE
Character	A2	A3	A4	A5	A6	A7	A8	A10		Character	a3	a4	a6	a9	a12	a18	a35	a48
A	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		a	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
B	2	2	3	3	4	5	5	6		b	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
C	2	2	3	4	4	5	5	7		c	2	3	4	4	7	10	19	27
D	2	2	3	3	4	5	5	7		d	2	3	4	6	8	11	21	30
E	3	4	5	6	7	8	10	12		e	4	5	8	12	16	24	47	64
F	2	2	3	3	4	5	5	6		f	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
G	2	2	3	3	4	5	5	6		g	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
H	2	2	3	3	4	5	5	7		h	2	3	4	6	8	12	24	32
I	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		i	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
J	1	1	2	2	3	3	3	4		j	1	2	2	3	4	5	9	12
K	1	1	2	3	3	3	3	4		k	1	2	2	3	4	5	9	12
L	2	2	3	4	4	5	6	8		l	2	3	4	6	8	12	24	32
M	2	2	3	4	4	5	6	8		m	2	2	4	6	7	10	19	27
N	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		n	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
O	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		o	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
P	2	2	3	3	4	5	6	8		p	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
Q	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	3		q	1	1	2	3	3	4	6	8
R	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		r	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
S	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		s	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
T	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10		t	3	4	6	9	12	18	35	48
U	1	2	3	4	5	5	5	7		u	2	2	4	6	7	10	19	27
V	1	1	2	3	3	4	4	6		v	1	2	2	3	4	5	9	12
W	2	2	3	4	4	5	5	6		w	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
X	1	1	1	1	2	3	3	4		x	1	1	2	3	3	4	6	8
Y	2	2	3	3	4	4	4	6		y	2	2	3	4	5	7	14	20
Z	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	3		z	1	1	2	3	3	4	6	8
&	1	1	1	1	2	2	3	3		æ	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2
Æ	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	2		œ	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2
Œ	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	2		fi	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	4
$	0	1	1	1	1	2	2	2		fl	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	4
£	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2		ff	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	4
1	2	2	3	3	3	4	4	5		ffi	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	3
2	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4		ffl	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	3
3	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
4	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
5	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
6	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
7	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
8	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
9	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
0	2	2	3	3	3	4	4	5
.	2	3	5	7	9	12	14	16
,	3	3	5	7	9	12	14	16
–	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	4
:	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	3
;	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	3
!	2	2	2	3	3	3	3	4
?	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2
’	1	2	2	2	2	3	3	4

Titling and Caps Only Founts

Miller and Richard

Miller and Richard offered wood letter as a ‘six dozen set’ in the following proportions—

Character	Number		Character	Number
A	3		R	3
B	2		S	3
C	3		T	3
D	2		U	3
E	4		V	1
F	2		W	2
G	2		X	1
H	2		Y	2
I	3		Z	1
J	2		;	1
K	2		:	1
L	3		&	1
M	3		.	3
N	3		,	3
0	2		’	1
P	2		–	1
Q	1		!	1

Curiously, they refer to the exclamation mark as ‘mark of admiration’.

Startype and Supertype

Startype of Birstall, West Yorkshire, supplied the following founts (weights are also included)—

Point Size	Weight (kg)	Synopsis		Point Size	Weight (kg)	Synopsis
6	2.5	60A 120a		8	2.5	40A 80a
10	5	50A 100a		12	5	40A 80a
14	5	30A 60a		18	5	18A 36a
24	5	10A 20a		30	5	6A 12a
36	5	4A 8a		42	10	8A 16a
48	10	6A 12a		60	10 (cored)	4A 8a
72	10 (cored)	5A 5a

All of their founts were made in proportion to Cap A, rather than stated tables. Percentages are—

A	100	F	50	K	40	P	50	U	70
B	50	G	50	L	75	Q	25	V	40
C	75	H	75	M	75	R	100	W	50
D	75	I	100	N	100	S	100	X & Z	25
E	125	J	40	O	100	T	50	Y	50
,	100	’	50	:	40	!	20	–	50
.	100	’	50	;	20	?	20	Figs 1-0	50

Titling founts were made in the proportions above (along with book founts). This contrasts with Adana’s two schemes for titling and book work. Brian Horsfall tells me that the proportions above were devised over a long period based on experience. While Startype could have adopted a more scientific approach, it wasn’t possible without some sort of automation to check previous orders.

Acorntype

John Eickhoff’s Acorntype of Bristol took great pride in offering ‘card founts’—type to a 5A10a synopsis. It is reproduced here—

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
5	3	4	3	6	3	3	3	5	2	2	4	3	5	5	3	1	5	5	5	3	2	2	1	2	1
a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z
10	4	6	7	13	6	4	7	10	4	4	7	6	10	10	4	3	10	10	10	6	4	4	3	4	3
£	&	,	.	;	:	–	’	’	!	?	(	)	ff	fi	fl	ffi	ffl	Figures
2	2	5	5	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	3 each of 0-9

These presses are of German descent—made by Rockstroh-Werke AG of Heidenau—but were made in the UK by Frank F Pershke.

Rockstroh-Werke AG made three models of machine—

• Victoria (Model ‘B’)
• Auto-Victoria (Model ‘C’)
• Kobold

The three UK-made models were—

• Vicobold
• Autovicobold
• Autovic

Information from Frank F Pershke adverts is reproduced below. The address given was Dover House, 170 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1

General Principles

The key feature of these machines is that they employ a ‘parallel platen’ approach. The platens are not hinged (like most other presses), but runs on rails in the vertical position. This ensures that impression is even over the face of the forme.

Inking is by a rotating cylinder at the head of the machine—rather than an inking disk. The machines are based on the Victoria Heavy Art Platen.

Vicobold

This machine is hand-fed and follows the same principles as the others in the series. Ink is supplied to the inking drum through a screw controlled duct, and transferred to the forme with two rollers. Impression strength can be changed with a single nut at the back of the platen: the parallel approach takes care of all of the forme with that one change.

There were at least two models—the Model ‘C’ which was motorised; and a Model ‘T’ run with a treadle.

Autovicobold

This machine is essentially the Vicobold with an automatic feed and delivery system. A selling feature was that the feed and delivery system could be wheeled away when needed: allowing the machine to be used as a hand-fed machine, and also to allow open access to the working area during set-up.

Autovic

This machine is a larger size than the other two models, and occupies a substantially larger space. It was supplied with an optional feed system. Inking is by means of three rollers: two are in contact with then forme on the way ‘down’, and the third roller is engaged with the form only on the way ‘up’. There are two additional rollers in the inking mechanism for ink distribution. An automatic wash-up system is also included.

• Subpages of “Other Presses”:
  • Ajax
  • Cropper
  • Model Press
  • Wharfedale